I’ve been a big fan of the Kindle Reader since it first came out a few years ago. Though one very obvious downside of ebooks is that, while you pay nearly the same price for an ebook, you don’t have the same rights over the ebook version that you have with a paper version.
For instance, in the past, I would sell most of my paper books after I finished reading them. For new or popular books, it’s usually possible to earn back about 1/2 the cost by selling it through the Amazon Marketplace.
Also, it wasn’t so easy to share ebooks either. I often times like to pass along books to friends, if I come across something that I think they would enjoy reading. Previously, on the Kindle, you were allowed to read a copy of your ebooks on up to 5 different Kindle devices. That provided one option of sharing books with friends, but it limited who you could share with greatly.
I was pretty happy to see that Amazon now has enabled the ability to loan Kindle books. There are still lots of restrictions involved with this – but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Under the current scheme, you’re allowed to loan a book once, for up to 14 days. Not all books are can be lent – it appears to be ‘opt in’ for publishers. So, only books of publishers that have explicitly allowed sharing of their books, can be shared.